Despite media scrutiny and attacks on his character, progressive Senate candidate Graham Platner continues to gain support in Maine, with 58% of voters backing him. His platform focuses on making life more affordable, shifting the Democratic Party away from corporate interests, and ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share. #GrahamPlatner
The democratic establishment has labeled him a communist one day, a Nazi the next day and an antifascist another day. You can’t be an antifascist and a Nazi at the same time.
I listened to the entire Pod Save interview with him, and I’m convinced he’s a solid dude who made some bad decisions when he was younger. He owns up to absolutely everything, and says he has learned from it. He sounded completely genuine to me.
His background is really important and honestly explains all of this controversy away. He was in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan for multiple tours, and he talks an about how much that fucked him up. He struggled for a long time and shitposting was one of his outlets. Who among us hasn’t regretted something we’ve posted? Owning up to and learning from it is the key.
If we want to stop electing vanilla spineless establishment candidates, the alternative is electing normal people who haven’t spent their lives hiding themselves from public view to maintain a “clean” persona. Nobody is perfect, everybody has made mistakes, and to me the strength of a candidate comes through most clearly when they take responsibility and demonstrate how their current self has evolved from their younger selves.
He had that tattoo for years after it was clear he knew what it meant, you really are going to trust someone is a good candidate that not only did several tours in Iraq but was hired by fucking Blackwater to continue killing because he stated he enjoyed it? If this is the best candidate in the state we are so truly fucked, I refuse to believe there is no one better that could run.
Nobody is perfect but are you kidding me with this? You really are going to say this guy is awesome, who stated essentially “millions may die because our way of life is better”, had no problem with being a for-profit war criminal less than ten years ago, because he claims he has good views on healthcare. I agree people change but that doesn’t mean he should be trusted in a position of power.
Leftist out here doing stupid purity tests, looking for some fairy tale candidate messiah. Gatekeeping anyone who isnt some perfect being. Because that’s representative of the normal human experience…
The tattoo thing was ALWAYS overblown. Anyone who knows marines, especially young shithead marines, knew that tattoo thing was stupid. I believe that he and his fellow marines didn’t know what it was when he got it. Because most people just learned what it was. So many people just now, this week, hearing the word “totenkopf” for the first time in their lives and feigning outrage.
I’ll even give you that maybe he found out later, knew what it was, but didn’t have it covered. And why?
Because it didn’t matter. That’s not what the tattoo meant to him, and its not what anyone around him thought it was. He had no pressing reason to cover it. Maybe it even served as a reminder of his shithead past.
It wasn’t until he got into the public eye when a bunch of terminally online nitpickers lost their shit that it actually became an issue to him to fix.
And he did fix it IMMEDIATELY.
And I’ve yet to see anyone who smugly reacted to the initial story with “so he got it covered right? right?” eat their words. Instead they’ve doubled down and moved the goal posts to “well, he should have had it covered forever ago”. Insufferable bullshit.
My brother in law, also a prior marine, had tattoos of clovers. Because he’s Irish and thought they were cool. It wasn’t until after his service that he learned that clovers are common with skinheads. And because he want a job in teaching, he got them covered.
This shit happens all the time. People making a stink about it are so far out of touch. They either need to touch grass, pull the stick out of their ass or the silver spoon out of their throat.
The privileged pearl clutching to instead defer support to another Biden/Pelosi/Schumer corpo dinosaur is pathetic.
Dems are great at talking themselves out of EVERY candidate, leaving us nothing but MAGAs.
Could you imagine if a strong, intelligent person like Elizabeth Warren was president? America, and the world, would be a much better, far less chaotic, place in the universe.
Even if he knew. Young soldiers doing stupid edgy stuff is par for the course. SS skull? Looks badass, man! That’s about the amount of thought that went into that.
You’re right, you should vote for the Nazi candidates that are proud to be a Nazis, and are promoting Nazi policies. That will teach those good Dem candidates…to not run for office.
A second person told CNN that they learned of the tattoo years ago from the acquaintance, who told them that Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
Ah sorry, I missed that as its third hand information. Thought you meant there was verifiable info.
You know most tattoo artists know Nazi symbols very well, right? You know he’d have to seek out shady artists to get a Nazi tattoo professionally done, right?
How private reddit account that was extremely anti everything Nazis stand for pretty handily show that he isn’t and wasn’t a Nazi, if that account didn’t exist in sure many many more people would be more skeptical
Y’all got to be careful with this. Because some people actually believe a stroke is what caused Fetterman to be what he is now. Instead of the actual truth which was he was always this and people just didn’t bother to, you know, actually check on his background and his past statements. You can’t fall for campaign rhetoric and think what they say when they’re running for something is who they really are. I say this because frankly it seems extremely relevant on this topic. Who is this guy really?
For REAL, this Platner dude is going to get elected and turn out to be a literal social fascist and people will be shocked somehow. Do people forget that a candidate can just say whatever they want to get your vote?
This right here. He’s had to work for his principles which means he’s more likely to stick by them. I believe he means well and wants to step up, not just get power and bribes or maintain the status quo. Nice to see how scared the billionaires are of him.
He’s currently lying about now having known, despite evidence now being out that he knew what kind of tattoo he had gotten. And he did nothing about it until now. And just replaced it with other norse mythology.
That’s a totally legit question, and the host followed up with that same rebuttal during the interview. I won’t get his exact wording right, but his answer was something to the effect of him still being fucked up when he went back as a contractor, but thinking that seeing things from the other side might be better (pretty sure he worked in diplomatic security as a contractor). But it turned out to be worse, and seeing it from that side ended up being the thing that convinced him how pointless it all was. He also said it was the only thing he was ever good at, so he didn’t feel like he had any other options. Makes sense to me even if it’s not something I would ever do.
He also said **terrorizing and killing brown people" was the only thing he was ever good at, so he didn’t feel like he had any other options. Makes sense to me
Yup. He’s a piece of shit who’s campaigning for giving more money to war criminals like him. People who want to call themselves leftists bend over backwards to honor and respect “veterans” who wasted their lives fighting for ~democracy and freedom~ subjecting other nations to American terrorism to enforce the empire is EXACTLY WHY nothing will ever get better.
Have principals, and refuse to back people who are principally apposed to your principals.
Edit: downvote you right wing bootlickers. In his own words after going to Iraq three times and loving murdering Iraqis so much he did it again with blackwater, he has this to say:
I served for ten years overseas. I know what sacrifice looks like. And I also know this country is failing far too many of its veterans. I will NEVER turn my back on the men and women who served. If you put on that uniform, then this country owes you a lifetime of respect and support.
We owe him a lifetime of respect and support for what he did? Fuck him and fuck you if you support war criminals as soon as they can themselves progressive.
Is there any evidence that he specifically committed war crimes or are you just assuming that literally every military person by default is a war criminal because words are meaningless when faced with self righteous anger from privileged white kids
Are you asking if there’s evidence of what he says he regrets being a part of happened? Or are you asking for evidence of blackwater operations being war crimes?
I’m a Palestinian adult, not a privileged white kid. I’d take someone who calls the genocide what it is over a full blown Zionist any day, but a neo-liberal Zionist who uses soft language to get elected isn’t what society needs. You deserve better, you should fight for better.
Coming back to the civilian world is hard as fuck, especially if you woke up during your time with the military. You get home and people call you a hero for what amounts to crimes against humanity, and if you try to explain the horror to them you get labeled crazy and dangerous. Nobody wants to hear that their government is run by mass murdering psychopaths and nobody wants to believe that “defense” is a myth that tricked their friends/family into participating in said mass murder. I was lucky enough to have the financial and emotional support to spend a year just working on myself, but i still have times where something will remind me of what I’ve seen and been part of and all I can do is hide myself and cry, and it still makes me uncomfortably furious when I hear people who have never experienced meaningful violence in their lives wish it upon others. I completely understand why some people who get home and immediately have to work to survive turn to a career with people who can at least understand/accept them and their trauma. It can feel like the only other option is isolation until inevitable suicide.
That’s such a valuable perspective, thanks for sharing your experience.
The fact that the people pushing against Platner—by mischaracterizing his personal growth and discounting his trauma—are the very people who sent you guys to war unnecessarily, makes it even more infuriating. This is a disgusting move from Democratic leadership.
Its not even hard to find ethier lmao. Literally one fucking Google search for “blackwater name change” gets results that list their former and current names.
The democratic establishment has labeled him a communist one day, a Nazi the next day and an antifascist another day. You can’t be an antifascist and a Nazi at the same time.
I listened to the entire Pod Save interview with him, and I’m convinced he’s a solid dude who made some bad decisions when he was younger. He owns up to absolutely everything, and says he has learned from it. He sounded completely genuine to me.
His background is really important and honestly explains all of this controversy away. He was in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan for multiple tours, and he talks an about how much that fucked him up. He struggled for a long time and shitposting was one of his outlets. Who among us hasn’t regretted something we’ve posted? Owning up to and learning from it is the key.
If we want to stop electing vanilla spineless establishment candidates, the alternative is electing normal people who haven’t spent their lives hiding themselves from public view to maintain a “clean” persona. Nobody is perfect, everybody has made mistakes, and to me the strength of a candidate comes through most clearly when they take responsibility and demonstrate how their current self has evolved from their younger selves.
He seems like an awesome candidate to me.
You got a link for the interview? I’ve only read a few articles but I am interested
For sure, here’s the whole thing.
He had that tattoo for years after it was clear he knew what it meant, you really are going to trust someone is a good candidate that not only did several tours in Iraq but was hired by fucking Blackwater to continue killing because he stated he enjoyed it? If this is the best candidate in the state we are so truly fucked, I refuse to believe there is no one better that could run.
Nobody is perfect but are you kidding me with this? You really are going to say this guy is awesome, who stated essentially “millions may die because our way of life is better”, had no problem with being a for-profit war criminal less than ten years ago, because he claims he has good views on healthcare. I agree people change but that doesn’t mean he should be trusted in a position of power.
Have you ever heard of Smedley Butler?
100% this.
Leftist out here doing stupid purity tests, looking for some fairy tale candidate messiah. Gatekeeping anyone who isnt some perfect being. Because that’s representative of the normal human experience…
The tattoo thing was ALWAYS overblown. Anyone who knows marines, especially young shithead marines, knew that tattoo thing was stupid. I believe that he and his fellow marines didn’t know what it was when he got it. Because most people just learned what it was. So many people just now, this week, hearing the word “totenkopf” for the first time in their lives and feigning outrage.
I’ll even give you that maybe he found out later, knew what it was, but didn’t have it covered. And why?
Because it didn’t matter. That’s not what the tattoo meant to him, and its not what anyone around him thought it was. He had no pressing reason to cover it. Maybe it even served as a reminder of his shithead past.
It wasn’t until he got into the public eye when a bunch of terminally online nitpickers lost their shit that it actually became an issue to him to fix.
And he did fix it IMMEDIATELY.
And I’ve yet to see anyone who smugly reacted to the initial story with “so he got it covered right? right?” eat their words. Instead they’ve doubled down and moved the goal posts to “well, he should have had it covered forever ago”. Insufferable bullshit.
My brother in law, also a prior marine, had tattoos of clovers. Because he’s Irish and thought they were cool. It wasn’t until after his service that he learned that clovers are common with skinheads. And because he want a job in teaching, he got them covered.
This shit happens all the time. People making a stink about it are so far out of touch. They either need to touch grass, pull the stick out of their ass or the silver spoon out of their throat.
The privileged pearl clutching to instead defer support to another Biden/Pelosi/Schumer corpo dinosaur is pathetic.
Dems are great at talking themselves out of EVERY candidate, leaving us nothing but MAGAs.
Could you imagine if a strong, intelligent person like Elizabeth Warren was president? America, and the world, would be a much better, far less chaotic, place in the universe.
This isn’t a purity test. He knew
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
Even if he knew. Young soldiers doing stupid edgy stuff is par for the course. SS skull? Looks badass, man! That’s about the amount of thought that went into that.
Less thought was put into choosing that tattoo than the next bar to visit.
Then don’t wait until years later when you’re called out in the media to remove it. He knew, he kept lying about it.
Whatever, be mad forever then. I hope your perfect lefty savior shows up for you. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll still be able to vote when they do.
Anything is better than a Nazi, I’m not asking for perfection
Except he’s very clearly not a Nazi.
If he’s not a Nazi he’s too stupid to be a politician anyway
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
I’ll take a reformed Nazi over Janet Mills or Susan Collins.
Removing a tattoo is very expensive and very painful. Anyone would put it off for as long as possible.
Then at least don’t lie about it
You’re right, you should vote for the Nazi candidates that are proud to be a Nazis, and are promoting Nazi policies. That will teach those good Dem candidates…to not run for office.
No, you can pick a candidate to vote for who isn’t a Nazi at all, and if there is none maybe you should get somebody else to run
There is no such thing as “the better Nazi to vote for”. “Lesser evil” only works when you don’t have the option to replace the evil.
Sorry but no, he knew, that’s disqualifying
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
Don’t let the act fool you
Sorry if I missed it, but where in the article does it say he knew?
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
Ah sorry, I missed that as its third hand information. Thought you meant there was verifiable info.
You know most tattoo artists know Nazi symbols very well, right? You know he’d have to seek out shady artists to get a Nazi tattoo professionally done, right?
In america, sure. In Croatia? I believe it
Yeah I understand your narrative, its just I was expecting your link to have evidence.
Who of us hasn’t done some edgy shitposting? A tattoo is just a shitpost on your own body.
A rather permanent Nazi shitpost is way beyond what most do, and keeping it and lying about it makes it worse
But he didn’t keep it he covered it up
How private reddit account that was extremely anti everything Nazis stand for pretty handily show that he isn’t and wasn’t a Nazi, if that account didn’t exist in sure many many more people would be more skeptical
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
Let’s just hope he doesn’t have a stroke before getting into office. 😒
Y’all got to be careful with this. Because some people actually believe a stroke is what caused Fetterman to be what he is now. Instead of the actual truth which was he was always this and people just didn’t bother to, you know, actually check on his background and his past statements. You can’t fall for campaign rhetoric and think what they say when they’re running for something is who they really are. I say this because frankly it seems extremely relevant on this topic. Who is this guy really?
For REAL, this Platner dude is going to get elected and turn out to be a literal social fascist and people will be shocked somehow. Do people forget that a candidate can just say whatever they want to get your vote?
This guy is bad news unfortunately
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
Ugh so true. Fuck Fetterman.
He seemed to have some cracks before he got elected that came out later on after his stroke fully dropped him into magat territory
This right here. He’s had to work for his principles which means he’s more likely to stick by them. I believe he means well and wants to step up, not just get power and bribes or maintain the status quo. Nice to see how scared the billionaires are of him.
He’s currently lying about now having known, despite evidence now being out that he knew what kind of tattoo he had gotten. And he did nothing about it until now. And just replaced it with other norse mythology.
So no.
If it “fucked him up”, why did he work for BLACKWATER after his discharge from the military?
They pay well and need people with soldiering skills.
That’s a totally legit question, and the host followed up with that same rebuttal during the interview. I won’t get his exact wording right, but his answer was something to the effect of him still being fucked up when he went back as a contractor, but thinking that seeing things from the other side might be better (pretty sure he worked in diplomatic security as a contractor). But it turned out to be worse, and seeing it from that side ended up being the thing that convinced him how pointless it all was. He also said it was the only thing he was ever good at, so he didn’t feel like he had any other options. Makes sense to me even if it’s not something I would ever do.
Yup. He’s a piece of shit who’s campaigning for giving more money to war criminals like him. People who want to call themselves leftists bend over backwards to honor and respect “veterans” who wasted their lives fighting for ~democracy and freedom~ subjecting other nations to American terrorism to enforce the empire is EXACTLY WHY nothing will ever get better.
Have principals, and refuse to back people who are principally apposed to your principals.
Edit: downvote you right wing bootlickers. In his own words after going to Iraq three times and loving murdering Iraqis so much he did it again with blackwater, he has this to say:
We owe him a lifetime of respect and support for what he did? Fuck him and fuck you if you support war criminals as soon as they can themselves progressive.
Is there any evidence that he specifically committed war crimes or are you just assuming that literally every military person by default is a war criminal because words are meaningless when faced with self righteous anger from privileged white kids
Are you asking if there’s evidence of what he says he regrets being a part of happened? Or are you asking for evidence of blackwater operations being war crimes?
I’m a Palestinian adult, not a privileged white kid. I’d take someone who calls the genocide what it is over a full blown Zionist any day, but a neo-liberal Zionist who uses soft language to get elected isn’t what society needs. You deserve better, you should fight for better.
Coming back to the civilian world is hard as fuck, especially if you woke up during your time with the military. You get home and people call you a hero for what amounts to crimes against humanity, and if you try to explain the horror to them you get labeled crazy and dangerous. Nobody wants to hear that their government is run by mass murdering psychopaths and nobody wants to believe that “defense” is a myth that tricked their friends/family into participating in said mass murder. I was lucky enough to have the financial and emotional support to spend a year just working on myself, but i still have times where something will remind me of what I’ve seen and been part of and all I can do is hide myself and cry, and it still makes me uncomfortably furious when I hear people who have never experienced meaningful violence in their lives wish it upon others. I completely understand why some people who get home and immediately have to work to survive turn to a career with people who can at least understand/accept them and their trauma. It can feel like the only other option is isolation until inevitable suicide.
That’s such a valuable perspective, thanks for sharing your experience.
The fact that the people pushing against Platner—by mischaracterizing his personal growth and discounting his trauma—are the very people who sent you guys to war unnecessarily, makes it even more infuriating. This is a disgusting move from Democratic leadership.
No, sorry, he’s the one who mischaracterized his own growth. Or the lack of it.
https://newrepublic.com/post/202083/graham-platner-knew-nazi-tattoo
This guy ain’t no Mamdani
He worked for Constellis, for 6months. Stop spreading disinformation.
Constellis is Blackwater. They changed their name to escape bad PR. Seems like it’s working to some degree.
Its not even hard to find ethier lmao. Literally one fucking Google search for “blackwater name change” gets results that list their former and current names.